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Camping in plain site has become the new norm. If you drive around Mountain View, California – specifically around the Google campus you will notice RV’s and vans littering the streets. Some of these “campers” are a click above homeless and some are young tech workers. Either way, the trick to succeeding is hiding in plain site. In other words don’t use an RV, use a van. In this case, a tiny van.
This inexpensive option, the Cascade Camper Kit, pimps out the Ram Promaster City van. For about $7,000 you can...

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My two main gripes about RC drones are around battery life and wireless range. Even the new DJI’s with all of their improvements in battery life and range, still have me wrapping up flights in under 30 minutes. If the tech keeps improving I may not have to wait too much longer. Fingers crossed.

Or… I could buy a Parrot DISCO today – swap out some batteries and mod the wireless signal to work over the 4G LTE cellular network. That means, flight times over an hour with range only limited by battery life and cellular signals. The mod is from UAVPAL and can be found here.

The Hitch Hotel (currently lives on Kickstarter) is a portable hotel for your car or truck, assuming you have a class 2 or higher hitch. It serves double duty as a storage box when closed (60 cubic feet of storage), and can hold three full sized bikes inside. When you are ready to convert the Hitch Hotel ($3,200) into a bedroom you simply extend the unit and deploy the adjustable legs. Inside you will find windows, vents, and a queen sized bed.
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Impossible Aerospace claims they have a drone hitting the market in Q4 of 2018 with a two hour flight time. The main structure of the US-1 is full of batteries which is why they have longer than average flight times.

The Impossible US-1 ($7,500 for basic and $9,500 for thermal) comes in a few flavors. Most of the differences are around the camera type (FLIR).

Flight details and telemetry are still unknown but we do have some specs. Details after the break. (more…)

A Florida-based company, Blu3, has launched a KickStarter for what they claim is the lightest and smallest (and cheapest) personal dive system.The Blu3 NEMO consists of a battery powered surface-supplied air (SSA) system with a 10-foot air hose. Dive time is 60 minutes and divers don’t need to...

As much as I love the DJI drones , they still aren’t waterproof, they don’t float, and they certainly can’t submerge and survive. I have lost two DJI quads to the water and believe me, the feeling sucks.

Well this KickStarter team hopes to solve a few of these problems with their orange drone, Spry. Spry flies, floats, and can even submerge. Everything on the drone is waterproof including the remote control. Water performance won’t be great (wireless signals don’t do well in water) but the drone is pretty quick in the air at 43 mph. The camera is 4k at 30 fps and stills are snapped at 12 megapixels.

Other Spry drone features include; Hold Position, Auto Follow, Object Orbit and Return to Pilot’s Position. Check it out at KickStarter. More pictures and video after the break. (more…)

This good looking mouse and rat trap is from New Zealand. It is called the Goodnature A24 and it kills mice and rats without poisons or traps that you have to touch to reset. The video below does a great job showing how it works. The Goodnature A24 has some irresistible bait that draws the mouse/rat in and then a CO2 cartridge powers a neck snapping blow when they insert their...

Finally a drone worth comparing/competing with the DJI models (Spark, Mavic Air). The Parrot Anafi is a great drone that is both portable and capable. Instead of talking to all of the points with this drone I will highlight some of the cool/new features and some of the negatives (not too many).